Bringing the crack since December 2003

The Flintstones #7 - "Another Day on Earth"

"When you watch the original Flintstones one thing that strikes you is, yeah, it's very much supposed to be a parody of America in the early '60s, but one thing that strikes you is really how good they had it.

"I mean, Fred is a guy who just works in a quarry, but he can own a house, goes bowling. Barney has spare time to invent a helicopter. It was very much a vision of what America could have, and probably should have, been. It's a sort of paradise for working and lower middle class people.

"The reality of what has happened since then is incredibly different, so I wanted to speak more to how we failed the original vision of all the good things civilization was supposed to provide average people and how we sort of let that slip away." -- Mark Russell

I kind of have the opposite opinion. Its very raw and honest about the world compared to the original cartoon. But theres something there that is kind of optimistic. Its right that humanity as a whole arent the best sort of people. Its easy to assume most people would care about our fellow man thanks to cartoons like the flintstones. Much of the media at the time helped promote the laziness that allowed thins to sink so far. And its easy to give into that realization that a person can be good but people suck.But at the same time, there are people who try anyways. Its easy to miss them amongst the selfish, the stupid because there are so many moments everyone gives into those thoughts. Doesnt mean they arent people to be inspired by or to follow suit afterwards.

I have no particular sentimental attachment to the original show, which is very much of it's time, but no more.

Aside from the fact that The Flintstones was the first time that a married couple were shown in bed together on primetime TV, it never struck me as more than an average cartoon sitcom with a creative art department for the dinosaurs jokes. (The fact it was actually a retread of the Honeymooners didn't register as AFAIK the UK didn't get The Honeymooners until some late night broadcast in the late 80's and early 90's where it made no impact at all)

This series though I'm enjoying, it's using the framework, but telling far more interesting stories precisely because it's not bound by the edicts of being a cartoon sitcom from the 1960's

It's true, one breadwinner in postwar America could bring home enough for a house, a car (maybe two), an annual vacation, weekends at the beach or lake, and possibly even a second (vacation) home. The working class moved up to the middle class in ways their parents and grandparents never dreamed of.

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